“Don’t you think it’s possible that those three shooters planned it themselves, without any outside help?”
“Only one of them wore a radio,” Alyssa told him. “The others didn’t. As far as we can tell, the radioman signaled the two other men to let them know that the shooting was going to start by putting on a white baseball cap.”
“Yeah, I know that.”
That’s right. Sam had been there.
“Maybe that radio was just a mindfuck,” he said. “Maybe there was no one else involved. Maybe the real terrorist act wasn’t the shooting. Maybe the real terrorism is in the way this investigation has tied up the FBI for all these months.”
Alyssa shook her head. “No,” she said. “There’s more. We know all three of the shooters entered the base as part of a group tour four days before the President’s visit. Someone helped them join that tour. We also found information on their computer hard drive that provides evidence to the fact they had help both obtaining those weapons and transporting them onto the base.”
“But nothing that IDs exactly who it was who helped, right?” Sam laughed. “If I were a terrorist, I’d leave shit like that behind, too, to confuse the hell out of the infidels.”
“We have an extra set of fingerprints on one of the weapons, belonging to a still unidentified person known as Lady X, believed to be female from the size of the prints.”
“Big deal. All that means is Abdul duk Fukkar got himself laid before he went to his heavenly reward. Just in case there really weren’t seventy-two virgins waiting there for him. ‘Hey, baby, want to touch my gun?’ It’s amazing how often that line gets results.”
“Okay, work this into your mindfuck theory, Starrett,” Alyssa challenged him. “We have a 911 call that warns of the attack. It came in right as the first shots were fired. It was made from a public phone on the base, also by an unidentified female. By the time we located that pay phone, we were unable to get any readable fingerprints—although there are some who theorize the voice on the tape belongs to that same Lady X.”
She glanced at him.
But Sam just shrugged. “If I were duk Fukkar, I’d leave the gun-toucher a little note telling her what’s going to go down. Just to add to the confusion. So maybe that tape is your Lady X.”
“So where is she?” Alyssa asked. “Why would she make that call and then drop off the face of the earth if she weren’t somehow involved?”
“Maybe she didn’t want to go down in history as the woman who laid some terrorist loser who then tried to kill the President.”
She braked as the traffic light in front of them turned yellow and then red. “Maybe she loved him. Maybe he conned her into believing that they had a future. Or maybe he loved her, too. Maybe he fell in love with her and left a note to try to explain.”
Sam laughed. “Yeah, I’m sure that’s what happened. No, thanks, I’ll stick to my mindfuck theory.”
“It’s just that we’ve traced the shooters’ trails back over the past two years of their lives, and we still have no clue as to how they got those weapons onto the base. We don’t know much, but we do know that none of the three terrorists was a rocket scientist. It’s hard to believe they’d be able to mastermind an assassination attempt on this scale. I mean, how did they even know that the President was coming to the base in Coronado?”
“Maybe it was just dumb luck,” Sam suggested. “Maybe their original target was Admiral Crowley.”
“Or maybe someone else was involved. There’s a theory out there that the weapons were placed on the base—hidden there, waiting for them. All they had to do was pick them up.”
“I can tell you who wasn’t involved,” Sam countered. “Lieutenant Commander Paoletti. He saved hundreds of lives that day. He should get a medal instead of being locked up and treated like some kind of criminal.”
“I’m with you on that,” Alyssa said. And when he looked over at her and into her eyes, she had another flash of unreality. She and Sam were in complete and total agreement about something.
Something that had absolutely nothing to do with sex.
They’d agreed quite passionately, and in rather loud unison, in the past when it came to having sex, but to little else.
The traffic light turned green, and she pulled her gaze back to the road.
“So how can I help him?” Sam said simply.
“You can start by providing a written and verified account of where you spent your time over the past few weeks,” she told him, “so we can officially cross you off Conseco’s list of suspected murderers.”
He understood why, and he nodded. “I’ll do that tonight.”
Alyssa glanced at him again. “Will you be able to account for all your time?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “Yeah. I think so. I mean, I haven’t been doing much of anything. I was either out of the country with the team, or … shoot, I don’t know. Watching TV.” He glanced at her. “Either alone or with my neighbor Don DaCosta. Who’s mentally ill. The aluminum-foil-on-his-head-to-keep-aliens-from-reading-his-mind kind of mentally ill. He’s not the best alibi, but that’s what I did. Football, basketball, and hockey with crazy Donny DaCosta. Once or twice I went to Nils and Meg’s, or Savannah and Ken’s for dinner. They always wondered where Mary Lou was. It was … weird.”
She knew what he was telling her, and she found it very hard to believe. Sam Starrett without female companionship for six solid months? She purposely kept the conversation directly on topic. “Then we’ll have to provide an alibi from your work schedule.”
“That I can do. I went into the base early and stayed late. And I did some, you know, volunteer shit, too. Believe me, I was never home from the base long enough to get out to Florida and back. I’m pretty sure I can prove that.”
Volunteer shit. Wasn’t that interesting? Alyssa had heard through the Spec Op grapevine that Team Sixteen had done some kind of program at an inner city high school in Los Angeles. She tried to picture Sam with high school students and had to fight to keep herself from smiling.
“You know, I’ve been thinking about this,” Sam mused, “and it makes sense that it’s Janine, not Mary Lou, who’s dead. Janine just split up from her husband—a guy named Clyde Wrigley. Although, Jesus, I met him a few times and he’s like some kind of throwback to 1972. A real pothead hippie type. Soft-spoken, you know? I’m not sure I ever saw him get up off the couch. I can’t picture him getting closer than ten feet to a shotgun.” He laughed with disgust. “As far as shotgun-wielding types go, I’m the one who fits that bill, huh?”
Alyssa sensed more than saw him turn toward her in the dim light from the dashboard. His voice was soft in the darkness. “Thanks for believing me, Lys.”
“You’re not a killer.”
He laughed quietly. “You left off the first part of that—‘You might be an asshole, Roger, but you’re not a killer.’ ” He did a very decent imitation of her voice.
She had to laugh. “You said it, I didn’t.”
“I made a shitload of mistakes in the past few years,” he told her. “But none of them involved a shotgun.”
What could she say to that? Alyssa just drove, wishing she knew where she was going. Her hotel was around here somewhere, but she was not taking him there. Maybe there was an all-night restaurant they could go to. Have a cup of coffee. Then go their separate ways for the night—and hopefully for the rest of their lives.
Sam cleared his throat. “This is where you’re supposed to tell me you’re not seeing Max anymore.”
It was too dark in the car for her to see his eyes. Was he actually serious?
“If Mary Lou’s alive, you’re still married.” Oh damn, why in hell had she said that? It sounded as if she were interested in—
“No, I’m not,” Sam said, still in that same quiet voice. “She signed those papers. As soon as the lawyer gets them, they’ll be filed, and our divorce will be official. I spoke to Manny Conseco about it—those papers are evidence, but they’ll
get copies notarized and sent to San Diego.”
“Don’t you have better things to think about—like the whereabouts of your daughter?” Well, that came out a little more sharply than she’d intended. But maybe that was just as well.
Sam was single again, and, now that it was convenient for him, he wanted to get back into her pants. Like that was a big surprise.
But she only had to keep him at a distance for a while. Max would be in town tomorrow, thank goodness. And if she was lucky, he’d send her back to D.C.
Alyssa wasn’t one to run away, but this was so much harder than she’d anticipated. And she’d anticipated that seeing Sam again was going to be very, very hard.
“Sorry. I’m …” He rubbed his forehead. “Yeah. I’m just … a loser.” He looked at her with eyes that were clearly haunted. “Do you think there’s hope that Haley’s still alive?”
“I don’t know,” Alyssa had to tell him.
“I haven’t seen her in six months,” Sam said wearily. “I don’t even know if I’ll recognize her.”
“How could you have let six months pass without even having gone to see your daughter?” Alyssa shook her head both at him and at the disbelief that rang in her voice. “Don’t answer that. That has nothing to do with this investigation. I’m sorry for—”
“Getting personal?” he finished for her. “Like you said to Noah—we’re friends. And you were right. We are friends, Alyssa. I value your friendship very much, and what you asked was a very valid question for one friend to ask another.” He sighed. “I guess I have to tell you honestly that I didn’t try very hard to visit. I made plans a few times to come out here for the weekend, but every time I did that, the team either went OUTCONUS or Mary Lou canceled on me.
“I might be a lousy father,” he continued, “but just for the record, it doesn’t mean that I didn’t miss Haley.”
Alyssa was silent, afraid that he was going to tell her more, and afraid that he wasn’t.
“You know, Mary Lou used to go out to meetings. AA meetings,” Sam said. “She had one mapped out for nearly every night of the week. I spent a lot of those nights with Haley. And yeah, I know, it was only a few hours compared to the time Mary Lou spent with her during the day, but still.… We had this agreement, me and Hale. I wouldn’t put her in the playpen unless I was in there, too—I mean, who could put their kid in a cage like that?—and she wouldn’t crap in her diaper.” He laughed. “I kept my end of the bargain, but she didn’t. You should have seen me the first time I changed one of those diapers, you know the kind filled with that really special type of baby poo? It’s amazing how after the fortieth or forty-first time you pretty much get used to it.” He laughed again. “God, you know you’re pathetic when you even miss your kid’s dirty diapers.”
He was silent for a minute, and then he said, “She used to fall asleep just, like, lying on my chest. You know, watching a football game or something. It was …” He stopped and cleared his throat. “It was something I missed very much when she was gone.”
“I’m sorry,” Alyssa said softly.
“Yeah,” Sam said. “Me, too.” He took a deep breath and blew it out hard. “I figure I’ll take a ride north tomorrow. Mary Lou’s mother lives somewhere up near Jacksonville, I think. I’m not sure where it is—I need to look at a map to jog my memory. I doubt that Mary Lou or Janine would’ve brought Haley there, but she might know something.”
“You should let the FBI handle this investigation.”
“Yeah, right.” He laughed his disgust. “You’ve done so well with the whole Coronado terrorist case. I’ll just sit back and wait for you to deliver Haley to me. Sometime before her eighteenth birthday.”
Her cell phone rang, and she flipped it open. “Locke.”
“Conseco,” the head of the Sarasota office said. “We’ve IDed the victim as Janine Morrison Wrigley. We’ve got APBs out on both her ex-husband and the missing sister and kid. I’ll keep you posted as we get more information.”
“Thank you,” Alyssa said. She hung up the phone and turned to Sam, who was watching her intently. “It wasn’t Mary Lou.”
“Oh, God, oh, Jesus, thank you,” he said, then covered his face with his hands.
He just sat there, head bowed, completely silent. Alyssa wasn’t even sure if he was breathing.
But then he drew in a deep breath, and let it out in a hard exhale as he ran his hands down his face. “I’m okay,” he said. “I’m just … a little …”
“It’s all right,” she said quietly. “You don’t have to say anything.”
It was several long moments before he spoke.
“It was Janine?” he asked.
“Yeah,” she told him. “They’re looking for her ex-husband, Clyde.”
“You up for a drive?” Sam asked, finally looking over at her. “Because I know where to find him.”
Haley was gone.
Mary Lou Morrison Starrett’s mood went from euphoric to terrified as she searched the small au pair apartment that she shared with her daughter, and then ran down the hall to Amanda’s bedroom and then to Whitney’s suite.
The good news was that Whitney wasn’t lying dead on the floor, her hair soaked with blood.
In all likelihood, the girl had taken Haley and Amanda, her own daughter—born when Whitney was barely fifteen—to the beach.
Still, Mary Lou’s hands shook as she picked up the phone and dialed Whitney’s cell phone number.
The girl answered it on the third ring. “ ’Lo?” Amanda was wailing in the background.
“Whitney!” Praise God. The cell phone signal out here in Nowheresville was spotty at best. “It’s Ma—Constance.” Connie, not Mary Lou. Connie, Connie, Connie. She was Connie Grant, who had a son, Chris. Haley had balked at a name change until Mary Lou had suggested she pick one herself. Her first choice was Daddy, which had made Mary Lou pause. Her second was Pooh, which also didn’t work. The third time was a charm, thank the Lord, with Christopher Robin, which fit right in with Mary Lou’s plan to pass her off as a little boy. “Where are you?”
She never raised her voice to Whitney, and right now it took everything she had in her to keep from shrieking at the teenager.
“Almost home. We’re nearly at the gate. We’ll be in the garage in about three minutes,” Whitney reported. “Are you and Daddy through? Meet us down there and take the screaming monster out of her car seat. You know, I don’t get it. Chris doesn’t have shitfits in the middle of Starbucks.”
“Please watch your language in front of the children,” Mary Lou said, working hard to keep her voice calm and in control, closing her eyes and silently invoking Ihbraham Rahman’s gentle spirit. Lord, she missed him so much there were times she doubled over from the pain.
If she lost her temper and let on that foul words in front of Haley and Amanda were a serious problem, Whitney would use them more frequently, instead of less.
The truth was, Amanda’s misbehaving had more to do with the fact that she had been unlucky enough to be born to a rich spoiled brat who was little more than a petulant infant herself.
Whitney Turlington was the bane of Mary Lou’s existence—yet she was also her savior. In the past two years of Amanda’s life, more than two dozen au pairs had run screaming from the palatial Florida mansion where Amanda and Whitney lived with Whitney’s very wealthy father, Frank. They hadn’t run from Amanda, who wasn’t the terror everyone made her out to be, but rather from Whitney, who was.
Barely seventeen and constantly at war with King Frank, Whitney Turlington was a bitch on wheels.
But because of that, King Frank hadn’t called a single one of Connie Grant’s faked references when Mary Lou had applied for the position. He’d just been downright grateful someone had showed up for the job interview at all.
Which meant that, at least for now, Mary Lou and Haley had found a safe place to hide in the Turlington’s private little compound just southwest of Sarasota—not twenty miles from the house where Jan
ine lay dead in the kitchen.
No one had found her yet.
Mary Lou watched the local news every night, praying that someone would find her sister and give her a proper, decent Christian burial.
She also prayed that the men who killed Janine wouldn’t find her and Haley.
Her ex-husband, Sam, the Navy SEAL, had once told her that the smartest place to hide was back where everyone had already searched. So she’d maxed out her credit card in Jacksonville, making it look as if she were heading north, while at the same time buying everything she hadn’t been able to take from Janine’s house when she’d left town on that awful evening.
One of her first stops had been at a beauty parlor where Haley’s golden curls had been cut boyishly short. Mary Lou had her own hair cut, too, and went blond, telling the beautician to match the shade with Haley’s.
The next stop had been Sears, where, while Haley wasn’t looking, Mary Lou had bought a brand-new Pooh Bear. She’d given it to her daughter, pretending she’d found it at the bottom of her big purse. Haley had looked suspiciously at the new stuffed animal’s gleaming golden fur and clean red shirt, but Mary Lou had chattered on about how she’d taken Pooh to the beauty parlor, too, and had his fur “done” while they were there, same as Mama’s hair.
She’d bought them clothes—Haley’s from the little boy’s section of the store—and luggage on little rollers. They’d headed to Gainesville, ditched the car, and boarded a bus back to Sarasota, where Mary Lou had seen Frank Turlington’s desperate ad for an au pair hanging on the community message board in the grocery store where she used to work. It had been there close to six months ago, when she’d first started as a cashier, and a month later, when she’d been about to take it down, her assistant manager had stopped her. Even though the store managers had a rule against signs hanging on the board for longer than a few weeks, the woman gave her the scoop on the Turlingtons, telling her that King Frank—as he was called by the locals—might as well put in a revolving door at the front of his house. Because a few days after a new au pair went in, she’d come shooting out again.
Gone Too Far Page 8